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Most Christians need to get this right.

This piece may not be to everyone’s liking, as it combines some autobiographical elements with biblical and devotional elements. If those three areas do not appeal to you, you better look away now! But most honest Christians, at least, might be able to relate. The overriding theme is this: ‘I know that God loves me, but it is still so hard for me to comprehend and apprehend it.’

On social media recently I wrote about such matters, and mentioned I am still working on this. Many wrote in, saying, ‘You are not alone in this.’ Many believers struggle to fully experience and embrace the love that Father God has for us. This piece will look at some further aspects of this.

A Man for Love

Maybe I can start with this rather personal bit, and move on from that. Many years ago while in a missionary training school in Europe, a visiting speaker from New Zealand came and taught us for a week. Some of you older believers might remember him: Ken Wright.

Anyway, he encouraged students to meet him privately if they wanted to talk or have some ministry. So I came to see him once and had a brief chat. He said he felt he had a word from the Lord for me. It was something to the effect of: ‘You are a man for love’ or something like that.

I went away thinking that was odd. And I have ever since. I never have seen myself as being very loving. I have always thought I am far too focused on myself, and really do not love others, or God, or even family members as I should. So to be told that was always rather puzzling to me.

Now, does God want me to be a loving person? He sure does. But I have never felt I have made much progress in this regard. But perhaps I am slowly and slightly moving in the right direction. If nothing else, I seem to be writing about these matters much more of late.

In recent times I have written two similar sorts of articles, both dealing with the human need for love and acceptance, but especially the ultimate love and acceptance we can have in God. On 15 March, I posted this article.

It dealt with the human yearning and longing for love from others. In it, I featured a famous 2001 sci-fi film to help get my point across. And on 17 April, I wrote this article.

In that newer piece I again featured a film, this time a popular 2019 movie. As I said in that second article, an identical line was uttered in each movie:

Two films – and there would likely be many others – have the amazing words uttered, “I have always loved you.” In one, a mother spoke these words to a young boy, and in the other, a father spoke them to an adult son. They both needed so very much to hear and receive those words.

I shared this stuff online, and said that we should pray and ask God to let His eternal love fully and forcefully sink into our thick skulls and hardened hearts. I know I need this desperately. And many of you do too. This was borne out in another posting.

With a link to that more recent article, I also said in a social media post: “I am the slowest learner on the planet: I am 71 years old, I have been a Christian for 53 years, and I still do not really get the reality of God’s love for me. Yes, my head gets it, but my heart still struggles to really comprehend and receive it.” Many said to me that they were in the same boat.

Divine Joy

One fellow replied in a comment saying, “This book was good on the subject…” It had a link to Amazon, but I could only see the title of the book, The Singing God. So I clicked on the link and was pleased with what I saw. I wrote this in a comment to him:

“Thanks Tony. I was going to say, ‘Just what I need – another book – more head knowledge!’ But then I clicked on your link and saw the author. I actually already have 15 books by Sam Storms. So I quite like him. But I do not have this one. So I just ordered it! Thanks again.”

Now that I have the volume, I can certainly say my friend Tony was correct. It is indeed a very helpful book. It is an easy-to-read and non-academic volume, but plenty of heavyweights are mentioned throughout, eg., Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones, J. I. Packer, D. A. Carson, John Piper and Joni Eareckson Tada.

Let me present a very brief overview of it and offer a few quotes from it. The book’s title is taken from a text some of us might have raced through and not looked at as closely as we ought to have — Zephaniah 3:17. It says this:

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you by His love;
He will exult over you with loud singing.

While we all know that God loves us, how many of us know that so great is His love and devotion to us, that our very presence causes Him to break out in song?! Sure, this text is referring to the people of God, Israel. But all God’s people would be included in this wonderful action of God.

Letting that truth really sink in is the point of this book. Says Storms:

What makes life livable is enjoying the joy that comes from knowing one is enjoyed by God. This in no way minimizes our responsibility to love God. The greatest commandment in the Law is that we love the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind (Matt. 22:37). Not loving God is, therefore, the worst of all human sins.

What I have in mind, though, is His love for us, His deep, emotional, loving movement toward people he created in his image. So let’s not reverse what the Bible sets in order: “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, NKJV). Our love for God is a reflex of His love for us. He loved us first! We must be careful not to invert the sequence.

I’ve been a Christian for 51 years. I’ve been a pastor for 38 years. I guess that makes me “old” and somewhat experienced. In any case, I’ve seen more than I care to remember of human pain and predicaments. I’ve counseled rebellious teens and lonely senior citizens. I’ve spent hours with bitter wives and their passive husbands. I’ve cried with victims of sexual abuse and rejoiced with those set free from bondage. Their problems may be different. Some are men, others are women. Some are old, others young. But the one thing they share in common is the deeply felt need of the human soul to know and feel that God loves and enjoys them.

The one thing that gives us hope, the one thing that conquers despair and brings strength for the struggle is the assurance that no matter how bad the problem may be, God loves us. Pain becomes bearable and tomorrow no longer terrifies when your soul is touched with the reality of God’s delight in you. That is why I have written this book.

Since he speaks of wanting us to FEEL the love of God as well as know about it, he has a chapter on emotions and how they must be rightly understood and made use of. He quotes from Martyn Lloyd-Jones and his book on preaching (which I actually just quoted from a few days ago as well). Lloyd-Jones ruled out an emotionless encounter and walk with God:

What can one say about such an attitude? I content myself by asking a few questions. Can a man see himself as a damned sinner without emotion? Can a man look into hell without emotion? Can a man listen to the thunderings of the Law and feel nothing? Or conversely, can a man really contemplate the love of God in Christ Jesus and feel no emotion? The whole position is utterly ridiculous.

I fear that many people today in their reaction against excesses and emotionalism put themselves into a position in which, in the end, they are virtually denying the Truth. The Gospel of Jesus Christ takes up the whole man, and if what purports to be the Gospel does not do so, it is not the Gospel.

The Gospel is meant to do that, and it does that. The whole man is involved because the Gospel leads to regeneration; and so I say that this element of pathos and emotion, this element of being moved, should always be very prominent in preaching.

But still, some folks might object, saying that emotions are unreliable and cannot be trusted. Well, that is true, but it is emotionalism that the believer must guard against, not the emotions that God has created us with. Says Storms:

But why can’t God be trusted with our emotions as much as with our minds? It seems as if evangelicals believe in God’s sovereign control over everything except its effect on their feelings. What I’m contending for is that God can be trusted to direct and oversee our experience of His power as well as our affirmation of it. Jack Hayford, the founder and chancellor of The King’s College and Seminary in Los Angeles, California, has some helpful words of wisdom for us concerning this matter:

“It began to dawn on me that, given an environment where the Word of God was foundational and the Person of Christ the focus, the Holy Spirit could be trusted to do both — enlighten the intelligence and ignite the emotions. I soon discovered that to allow him that much space necessitates more a surrender of my senseless fears than a surrender of sensible control. God is not asking any of us to abandon reason or succumb to some euphoric feeling. He is, however, calling us to trust Him — enough to give Him control”

He goes on to remind us that “emotions are not an infallible guide for establishing what is true and false,” nor are they alone “decisive in determining doctrinal verities.” And he discusses this further, taking a look at what Jonathan Edwards said about “religious affections.”

But that is from just one chapter of Storms’ book on one aspect of this matter. Much more can be said about this volume, but let me finish with its closing paragraphs where he offers more on the thoughts of Jonathan Edwards and his populariser, John Piper:

God is glorified by your enjoyment of Him. Or, as John Piper so often puts it, God is most glorified in you when you are most glorified in Him.

Thus for God to seek His own glory and for God to seek your good are not separate or antithetical endeavours. That is because God is most glorified in us (there’s His glory) when we are most satisfied in Him (there’s our good). Therefore, if God were not committed first to His own glory, He would not be at all committed to our good.

Our highest good is in the enjoyment of God. God’s highest good is in being enjoyed. Thus, for God to work for your enjoyment of him (that’s His love for you) and for His glory in being enjoyed (that’s His love for Himself) are not properly separable. Glory to God!

We all need to pray to grasp these truths more fully. And we want to do more than just think about them more fully. We need to experience them more fully as well. I know I do.

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Republished with thanks to CultureWatch. Image courtesy of Rosa Stone.